The Destruction of Words

“It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words.” 1984, George Orwell

My dad spent most of his career as a reactor physicist, but when they started shutting down nuclear plants in the late 1970s, he decided to make a major career change and become a high school teacher. He was an awesome teacher, and it was probably his true calling all along. It did, however, have its issues.

It was through my dad’s teaching experience that I got my first exposure to the institutional desecration of the English language. As a department head, he received all kinds of letters and memos from administrators, education bureaucrats, and union leaders that were full of jargon and almost undecipherable. We called it Edu-speak. He would often share them with me, and I still remember the smirk on his face as he watched my expressions alternate between confusion, disbelief, and disgust. The pages were filled with terms like heterogeneous, paradigm, disparate, normative, hegemonic, formative, pedagogy, and heterodoxy. The very people that we pay to educate our children to use language to communicate meaning effectively, intentionally use language to obscure the meaning of their communications. Irony abounds!!

Why did they choose to communicate using terminology that was difficult to understand instead of writing their concepts clearly and in simple language? There are two reasons that I can think of; 1) to convey a sense of superiority that stifles contradiction and critiques, and 2) to hide or disguise potentially unpopular directives or concepts behind ambiguous language. Instead of saying, “We need to improve the test scores of our dumbest kids”, the educrat might say, “The disparities in our perceived paradigm of the normative range of the heterogeneous classroom must be minimized.” (Okay, I likely would not have gone far in that field, but you get the gist!)

More and more we see this same twisting of the language being employed throughout our society by those in authority, or those seeking power over others, in the context of “wokeness”. They use euphemisms to promote views and policies they favor and use newly redefined pejoratives to discourage views and policies they oppose. The goal is to marginalize dissent from progressive ideology, and the strategy has been extremely successful.

Critical Race Theory (CRT) proponents, such as Ibram X. Kendi, Robin DeAngelo and other so-called anti-racists, have literally and unilaterally changed the definition of the word racism. According to their definition, racism is defined as anything that results in disparate outcomes between “whites” and “people of color” (POC). They explicitly state that this includes testing, merit-based systems, and capitalism. Their solution to racism, which they call anti-racism, is an authoritarian form of government that has the power to enforce “equity” throughout our society. In essence if you are not a neo-Marxist, you are, by their definition, a racist. It’s no wonder that racism is such a problem now in the US, the majority of our citizens are racists!

Politicians, news media, educators, our social media “friends”, and entertainers are continuously promoting virtuous sounding phrases: “social justice”, “diversity, equity, and inclusion”, “black lives matter”, “love is love”, and “follow the science”. These are some of today’s mantras that must not be questioned. Should you be so backward and wrong-thinking as to question them or hold beliefs that don’t agree, you will be maligned as a bigot, a racist, a denier, a hater, a misogynist, an x-phobe (there appears to be no limit to the variable x that is used in front of phobe), or even a nazi. None of us want to be labeled as any of these things so we train ourselves to avoid expressing anything that may lead someone to think that we are not in tune with societies virtues. We don’t want to offend people and we certainly don’t want to commit any unintentional microaggressions, so we remain silent, or worse, we nod our heads in submissive agreement.

But what do these phrases really mean? Social justice is not about the equal application of the law. Justice does not need an adjective. Diversity does not encompass the Biblical worldview. Inclusion does not include the traditional definition of marriage and sexuality. Black Lives Matter doesn’t concern itself with the hundreds of thousands of black babies that are aborted each year in the name of “women’s health”. And the science they speak of has no resemblance to the open-minded exploration of our natural universe. The words they use have very little to do with the meaning they convey. Each of these phrases promote a narrative of an authoritarian worldview that require that we surrender our individual identities to the latest in progressivism. Today it’s a new form of “racism” and the glorification of transgenderism. Tomorrow it’s likely to include the promotion of polyamorism and the subjugation of our institutional churches. This is the wisdom of the world (1 Corinthians 1:20) and it’s being enforced with ever more enthusiasm.

These doctrines are permeating every aspect of our society, including our schools and churches. They are anti-Christian and anti-American. Destruction of our language is the leading indicator. Totalitarianism cannot possibly take hold in a free society without a great deal of subterfuge, but their subterfuge has now been fully exposed for all to see. We can stand against it and remain a free people, or we can cower, remain silent and enslave ourselves.

Jesus said, “Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil on account of the Son of Man” [Luke 6:22]. I have every intention of being blessed!